Readers' comments

I'm puzzled. Why should old-age suicide be seen as a problem? Just because Westerners cling desperately to the fantasy of a "good death" (at home surrounded by loving friends and family without pain or mental confusion) in face of the evidence that 95% of people will die in hospitals confused, frightened and suffering from discomfort with tubes sticking out of them and overly-busy nursing staff passing by on their way to something more urgent.

Personally I'd opt for self-termination at a time of my own choosing, and it appears many others feel the same way. Perhaps the problem is not with the old, but with those who can't take a realistic look at approaching death and deal with it coherently?

But how lonely are they really? The article said that "only" 20% of the elderly in South Korea live with their children. What's the rate in the OECD? I'd imagine that it's less than 20% in the USA. The first elderly man described in the article had a son who visited him regularly and brought him home cooking. That doesn't sound too lonely either; rather he chose to die because he didn't want to be burden on his children (an honorable decision).

If you look at the east Asian countries with a high suicide rate among elderly what you'll see is three common traits:

1. Weak pension systems (hence the poverty).
2. Confucian values (placing family before yourself and not having an aversion to suicide).
3. Immense social change over the past 60 years. This might be biggest one. An 80 year-old in an OECD country could at least expect to recognize the current world relative to the one they grew up in. For the elderly in South Korea or China, 2013 is completely and utterly different from the world they grew up in; and the incredible societal changes make all of their life experience of minimal value.

I agree. However we must recognise the very real risks that such suicide will be co-opted by society in perverse ways, such as those mentioned in This Perfect Day and Logan's Run and other Sci-Fi stories.

Yes I agree. What frightens me is not death but the horrors of the inevitable wait for death. Modern science and technology with good health services in Australia at least keep you alive but not fit and you fade away inch by inch for years together with nothing much to do except to contemplate the inevitable and hope it will not be some horrible disease. What a way to go.